To anyone who would like a digital copy of my slides, I have embedded them below. Feel free to share.

The DDos (short form for Distributed Denial of Service) attack lead to disruptions for bloggers who host on the free service, WordPress.com. (See this for explanation of DDos.)

While WordPress did get things back up and running, it does show you that free services and sometimes paid are vulnerable at times.

Protestors in Madison, WI. Photo credit: kenfagerdotcom on Flickr.

Significant quote:

“We use the Internet and mobile technology to build society, and we take it for granted that the open Internet will always be in place,” said Brett Solomon, who runs Access, an organization that helps those in countries who are subject to censorship maintain Internet access.

The article is a good read.

The Red Cross blog explains how the group cleared up confusion and came clean on the error. No harm, no foul. See Twitter Faux Pas.

Way to turn a slip up into a positive!

For those who haven’t yet jumped into tweeting and those who want to expand their use of Twitter, questions remain. Bear with me as I explain for the Noobs.

What is Twitter? It’s a social network that produces an information stream of short bursts of content (and links). By scanning this conversation, you see real-time news, information and insights from people you know and those you don’t know. Messages are limited to 140 characters or less. (This is changing – as a TweetDeck service now allows for longer Tweets, but that’s another story.)

Chiefly, you might be asking where do I go from here? Here’s four steps to get you started.

[Side note: While I am a firm believe in reading the manual, doing research, and doing deep thinking, Twitter is one of those things that one learns best through experience.]

1. Listen. Listening is so important. Social media is a conversation. You will be speaking with your stakeholders just as you would at an event or open house. Before you spout off your elevator pitch, you would listen to what the person is saying, what she needs, where she is coming from. You also might attend a presentation and hear an expert speak. Likewise you can follow experts in your field on Twitter and gain from their wisdom.

So to start listening on Twitter, you need an account. If your organization doesn’t want to set up an account and not use it, then set up a personal one or a test account. Then, follow people. Not too many because this can easily get overwhelming, There is no requirement that you Tweet (or send a message). You can just observe before jumping in. Use the search tool to find what people are saying about your organization (if anything) or your areas of interest.

2. Adjust Your Attitude. Twitter is not something that you are going to “get” in a day. It takes time. It is not an information source that is formatted or organized for you. It is not like the newspaper where you read the whole news section. I like blogger Leo Babauta’s description that he manages Twitter by thinking of it as a river of information that he wades into at a certain time. No need to stress if you didn’t read every Tweet from every person you follow.

Caveat – if Twitter users ask you questions or make comments to your organization, you should be prepared to reply. It doesn’t matter if you don’t Tweet much, but it does matter if you ignore your audience.

3. Educate Yourself. Reading this should not be end of your learning. Here’s a couple of resources that have background and helpful tips: Tweeternet, Using Twitter for Business, Ten Things You Must Know Before Using Twitter and The Great Twitter Experiment.

4. Develop a Strategy and Policy.Once you get a handle on what Twitter is and what it does, devise an approach. It doesn’t need to be uber-formal, but you need to have one. At minimum, since Twitter can be a source of traffic to your website, make sure you send a Tweet when news updates are added to your site, and include a link. But start to brainstorm how you are going to expand your Twitter use and gain followers. Are you going to Tweet announcements or events? How frequently? Are you going to RT (Retweet) others? Who is going to be your Twitter leader? How is your organization going to respond to questions? Think about how you are going to Kickstart Your Twitter Influence.

I assume that most folks are working within an organization, so there is a need for a social media policy. Get yourself and your team on the same page by establishing a policy that everyone can follow. Lots of other businesses and groups’ policies are available to use as a model.

We want companies to freely use social media. We demand honesty, transparency and authenticity from them on those channels. And then punish them accordingly when they do so. The latest example of this great social hypocrisy happened to Kenneth Cole, the chairman and chief creative officer of a shoe company of the … Read More

via HighTalk

Enjoy!

Search Engines produce the majority of traffic to your site or blog.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for your website, blog or other web content. The majority of a site’s traffic is a result of a user searching on a search engine — Google, Bing, Yahoo! — then clicking on a result. So, it make sense to know what you are doing that can either help or hurt your site’s search engine ranking.

I plan to come back to this subject again and again, because all website owners need to constantly focus on SEO or search engine optimization.

I love Search Engine Watch – it’s a great site by pros who know what they are doing.

This article by a friend of mine Simon Heseltine “Stop Making the 6 Biggest SEO Mistakes” outlines simple things – such as not naming your Home Page “Home” or using another “call to action” instead of “Click Here.” These items are totally in your control to change and they can make a world of difference in SEO.